\Lech Lecha 5774:       What’s the Question?

By Rabbi Joshua (quizzically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

In memory of Chacham Ovadya Yosef, the great Torah sage and halachic authority, who passed away this week in Yerushalayim.  May his memory be a blessing.

Avraham, in accordance with God’s word to him, travels from his homeland to the land of Canaan. While there, a famine breaks out, and he goes down to Egypt for sustenance. Rashi, citing the midrash, says that the famine occurred only in Canaan, and came as a test of Avraham, to see if he would question God, who had told him to go to the land of Canaan, and now brought a famine which caused him to leave it. Rav Yechezkel Abramsky writes that we should not be surprised that God would bring a famine to an entire land for the purpose of testing one person, because this conforms with the approach of the Rambam, in the introduction to his commentary to the Mishnah, concerning God’s purpose for creating the world. Although, in his Moreh Nevochim, the Rambam takes a different approach, in his introduction to Zeraim he says that the purpose of creation was for man, and all of creation is there to serve the wise man, who has reached intellectual perfection and knows God. In this context, he says that someone can build a huge palace in the middle of a desert, and, in the end, the entire purpose for the palace turns out to provide a shade for a wise man who is passing by one day. In a similar way, says Rav Abramsky, God brought a famine to the entire land of Canaan to test one person, Avraham, who had come to know Him. This explanation is in line with a midrash to parshas Bereishis (Bereishis 2:4) which says that the world was created for the sake of Avraham, or by extension, for the sake of those wise men in the world who through the influence of Avraham, come to know God. 

Rav Abramsky’s remarks may help us answer a criticism of Avraham raised by the Ramban, who says that Avraham, in the face of the famine, should have relied on God to provide him with sustenance and not gone down to Egypt. Why, then did he in fact, go to Egypt? Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l, without mentioning the Ramban’s criticism, writes that Avraham had an agenda in Egypt. As the metropolis of the Middle East, he felt that if he could influence its inhabitants to abandon their pagan lifestyle and recognize God, he could redeem all of mankind. Although he ultimately failed in this regard, he did, according to Rav Soloveitchik, pass the test of encountering Egyptian culture and not being affected by it spiritually. In fact, he came out strengthened spiritually, and redoubled his efforts at spreading the knowledge of God after his return to Canaan.

Rav Soloveitchik writes that Yosef, too, was tested by his encounter with Egyptian culture, when he served there as prime minister. Interestingly, in that instance, as well, famine was brought to an entire land for the specific purpose of bringing Yosef, and, later, his family, to Egypt. Rav Moshe Wernick, zt”l, who served for many years as the mashgiach ruchani, or spiritual counselor, of the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago, wrote, in a sefer he authored, that part of the divine purpose behind this process was for Yosef to make an effort to purify the Egyptians from their decadent culture. He gives many examples of Yosef’s actions in this regard, among them his demand, as brought in the midrash, that in order to procure food during the famine, the Egyptians undergo circumcision. He made this demand in order to curb their uncontrolled sexual desire, which, as the Rambam says in his Moreh Nevochim, is one of the purposes of circumcision. We thus see, once again, that God will bring about events of great proportions for the purpose of bringing mankind to a recognition and knowledge of Him, which is the ultimate purpose of creation.